Monday, 23 September 2013

Crossing Swords

I thought I knew this area like the back of my hand. And by road I did. But the fields were another matter. I’ve been rediscovering the locale while circumnavigating the dog-walking circuits and strolling the lengths and breadths of the footpaths and bridleways of the area. No longer just the trans-village routes either, but now the inter-county rights of way too.

I’d been walking towards a fading sun that evening before pausing for thought on the footbridge between the maize and the Miscanthus fields. Someone else’s broken conversation was carried to me on the wind as I stood there trying not to listen:

“A cold, eh? What you need for that is eucalyptus . . .”

“Isn’t that what George Formby used to play?”

Their voices came and went until finally silence prevailed and they went their separate ways. It wasn’t long though before I heard a lone voice aimed directly at me, “Penny for your thoughts.”

“You’d want your money back,” I replied nonchalantly.

“Try me.”

“I was just gazing through the gaping holes of what might have been,” I told her, “and feeling like an interloper in my own life. In my mind I looked back at the blank canvass with which I’d started, tarnished now with an unsightly splodge rather than the resplendent work of art I would have preferred. All right, I admit I did deliberately go over the lines in the great colouring book of life, but even so . . .”

“Don’t talk such bollocks,” she said sensibly, “Mind you, you’re right about one thing, I would have wanted my money back. Come on you miserable old sod, let’s walk.”

It quickly struck me how overrated walking into the sunset was. You can’t see a thing!

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.